Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts helps to hold a large American flag during a football game, Nov. 18, 2012, in St. Louis.

Written by

Oren Dorell and Cathy Lynn Grossman
USA TODAY

As early as next week, the Boy Scouts of America's may announce it will allow gay scouts and troop leaders, a spokesman for the group has told USA TODAY.

If this policy shift is approved by the national board meeting at their scheduled meeting next week, it will be a sharp reversal of the Scouts' decade's old national policy banning homosexuals.

"The policy change under discussion would allow the religious, civic, or educational organizations that oversee and deliver Scouting to determine how to address this issue," BSA spokesman Deron Smith said in a statement to USA TODAY. ...